The Social Life of Gender Dedicated to Saba Mahmood, Whose Brilliant Scholarship Has Challenged and Inspired Our Thinking About the Meaning and Goals of Feminism
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The Social Life of Gender Dedicated to Saba Mahmood, whose brilliant scholarship has challenged and inspired our thinking about the meaning and goals of feminism. CHAPTER Politicizing Gender 9 Gowri Vijayakumar and Katherine Maich The previous chapters have examined how gendered norms, practices, ideologies, and institutions shape social life. This chapter explores how movements create changes in gender relations by tracing the history of feminist activism since the late 19th century. Feminist activism is typically described as involving three “waves”: the first wave of the late 1800s and early 1900s, when women organized for voting and other legal rights; the second wave of the 1960s and 1970s, when women organized for workplace equality and against sexual violence; and the third wave of the 1990s and beyond, when the category of “woman” increasingly became contested and feminists of color pushed for an understanding of gender and sexuality with attention to race, class, and colonialism. This chapter takes a different approach: Instead of describing feminist movements as consecutive waves, we will look at feminist movements as involving multiple “currents” that sometimes intersect, sometimes join, and sometimes emerge in tension with one another. The chapter shows that like other social movements, feminist activism has historically been influenced by and reproduced multiple social inequalities. Though the chapter primarily examines feminisms in the United States, it also looks at the global context for feminist activism and the powerful influence of feminists in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa on U.S. feminisms. The chapter concludes by showing how activists around the world challenge and transform gender relations in many ways, including in ways not typically defined as feminist. Introduction On Valentine’s Day in 2013, activists in 207 countries around the world gathered to protest violence against women. They called the march “One Billion Rising.” The event was designed as an activist response to recent inci- dents of violence against women that captured media attention and sparked outrage around the world—a gang rape in Steubenville, Ohio, in the United States; the shooting of Malala Yousafzai, an activist for girls’ education in northwestern Pakistan; and a gang rape and murder in New Delhi, India. It emphasized that by coming together and telling their stories, women could rise up against such violence. The famous organizer of One Billion Rising, Eve Ensler, who was also the author of the Vagina Monologues, explained in the newspaper The Guardian that the event aimed to “transform the mind- set that has normalized this violence, to bring women survivors into their 171 bodies, their strength, their determination, their energy and power and to dance up the will of the world to finally make violence against women unac- ceptable” (Ensler 2013). While One Billion Rising sought to emphasize women’s ability to over- come violence, feminist activist critics pointed out that the event silenced some women while elevating others, promoting a narrow vision of feminism. These critics suggested that by claiming that individual women could rise up against violence, One Billion Rising obscured the structural constraints they faced. For instance, a feminist from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) argued that it was insulting to expect raped women to turn up in the face of atrocities and in order to tell their stories to the rest of the world. An Iranian feminist pointed out, “Who is someone else to come to my country and claim to ‘help’ me by telling me to ‘rise’ above the experiences I have had?!” (Gyte 2013). These critiques articulated long-standing tensions in feminist activism. Previous chapters showed that even as feminists of the 1960s and 1970s— mostly white and middle class—challenged women’s subordination to their husbands, their “liberation” through professional work often depended on the subordination of other women. By contrast, women of color and working- class activists articulated the need for feminisms that incorporated race, class, sexuality, and colonialism—some rejecting the term feminist altogether. This chapter looks at how feminist activists have organized politically to both disrupt and reproduce the various power relations that are inextricably linked to gender. Focusing on a few specific movements and struggles that highlight key historical moments in feminist activism, the chapter explores the internal power dynamics of feminism as a social movement. It considers how the category of woman has served as a useful tool for organizing but also as a tool for exclusion. The chapter also uses the words of feminist activists to describe the multiple dimensions of feminist praxis—that is, the ways in which feminist critiques and theories are embodied and practiced through collective action. This praxis holds important lessons for the intellectual project of the sociology of gender that we reflect on at the end of the chapter. Rethinking the History of Feminism: Waves and Currents Scholars typically describe the history of feminist movements in the United States as involving three subsequent phases: first-, second-, and third-wave feminism. According to this model, from the 1840s through the 1920s, first-wave feminism focused on basic citizenship rights for women equal to those of men—such as suffrage and property rights. Then, from the 1960s to the 1990s, second-wave feminism focused on issues such as workplace inequalities, sexual harassment, reproductive rights (such as the right to choose an abortion), domestic violence, and rape. Finally, starting in the 1990s, third-wave feminism challenged the idea that women shared a single experience and instead expanded conversations within feminism to consider relationships between gender and race, class, sexuality, and colo- nialism. (See Figure 9.1.) 172 The Social Life of Gender Figure 9.1 Feminist Activism in Three “Waves” Second First Wave Wave Third Wave 1840s–1920s 1960s–1990s 1990s-Present votes for women, workplace intersectionality, property rights, inequalities, Third World educational/ sexual violence, feminism, LGBT rights, occupational equality reproductive rights queer politics Figure 9.2 Feminist Activism as a Set of Intersecting Currents Women in trade unions and socialist movements Socialist feminisms Women’s suffrage activists Intersectional and Third World feminisms Abolitionist activists Women in the Civil Rights Sex-positive Black Power movements feminisms LGBTQ rights and queer politics This chapter moves away from the metaphor of waves to conceptual- ize feminist politics as involving a series of intersecting and overlapping currents. Feminist currents describe particular movements and struggles around gendered power relations. For instance, currents include everything from socialist feminism to women’s suffrage to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans- gender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights to Black feminism. While all currents are related to gender, they tie gender to different goals, ranging from sexual freedom to labor rights. In turn, they also adopt different strategies. These currents build on and enhance one another, but they can also diverge and come into conflict. At times, one current has obscured or even subordinated another current. Within each time period, we trace different currents and their relationships to one another. (See Figure 9.2.) Conventional histories often use a narrow definition of feminist move- ments that is focused on women’s collective action for legal, economic, or social rights as women (rather than as immigrants, laborers, or nationalists). Chapter 9 | Politicizing Gender 173 Yet, women’s political struggles have taken many forms. Women around the world have played key roles in labor, communist, abolitionist, nationalist, LGBTQ, and anti-colonial movements. Conventional histories also often focus on North American and European feminist activism and pay less attention to histories of struggle around gender and sexuality in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Finally, activism around gendered power relations is not always waged by women but also by queer people, men, and so on. Though there is not enough room in this chapter to describe every form of activism linked to gender and sexuality, it will provide a framework to understand gender activism in various forms that defy the conventional framing of femi- nist movements. Nineteenth- and Early 20th-Century Gender Activism in the United States Though most people associate the feminist movement in the United States with the 1960s and 1970s, women (and some men) had advocated around gender issues for many decades before the rise of feminism per se. In particu- lar, the currents of gender activism prior to the feminist movement centered on women’s voting rights and equality in the household, the abolition of slavery, and labor rights. These currents are often considered part of the first wave of feminism. One of the most critical moments in the women’s suffrage current occurred in July of 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, led by women’s rights advocates Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others. The convention was the first in U.S. history to focus on women’s equal rights and political participation. The delegates produced a Declaration of Rights and Sentiments that listed 18 points of grievance, all of which sought to promote equity between women and men. For instance, one grievance challenged the “tyranny” of men over women, while another argued in favor